Your body has many parts, from the hair on the top of your head
to the toes at the end of your foot. This lesson will teach you
the names of those parts using pictures of real people as illustrations.

(Editor's Note: Some parts of your body are personal and
private, and therefore will not be included in this lesson.

You can find out the names of
those parts from medical books at school or at a library or by looking
on the internet.)

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The human
body can be described in many different ways depending on its size and shape.
A thin body can be scrawny, slim, skinny, slender, bony or emaciated. (Look
in your English/Your Language dictionary to find definitions of these words.) A heavy body can be fat, plump, obese, chubby,
stocky or corpulent. Between these extremes are bodies that are shapely,
curvaceous, svelte, athletic, average (for women) or trim, rangy, muscular,
athletic, average (for men). A person can be tall, short or of average or
medium height.

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The
Human Head

A normal
human head has hair covering its top, rear and upper sides. It has two
ears, one on each side of the head. The front of the head is called
a face. A face consists of a
forehead across the top of the
face, two eyebrows at the bottom of the
forehead, and two
eyes, one under each eyebrow. Beginning between the
eyes and extending downward is a nose. The nose has
two openings at the bottom called nostrils. On either side of the
nose are your cheeks. Below the
nose are the upper
and lower lips. The lips guard an opening called a
mouth. Inside the mouth are top and bottom
teeth
which grow out of the gums. Growing from the bottom center of the
mouth is a tongue. Behind the
tongue is an opening
called a throat which leads to the
lungs and the
stomach. Under the mouth is the front part of your lower
jaw called a chin.

The
head
is connected to the rest of the body by the neck. In the front of
the
neck is a bump called your Adam's apple or
voice box.
This bump is much more noticeable in men than in women.

Hair
can be long or short or medium length. It can be close-cropped or
shoulder-length. It can be permed, teased, dreadlocked, styled or
natural.

Many
people, mostly females, change the color of their hair. They dye
their hair or color their hair to give themselves a different appearance
or to cover gray or white hair.

The
person in the picture above has dark brown hair. (A woman with brown hair
is called a brunette.) The hair above is slightly wavy and
medium-length. The person also has a neatly-trimmed moustache and a
grizzled beard.

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Face terms

Faces
come in various shapes. They can be oval, heart-shaped, round or
square. Faces can be described as being beautiful, pretty, striking,
cute, interesting, handsome, average, plain, homely or ugly,

There
are many muscles in your face that allow you to form many different
expressions. By moving or tensing the muscles of your jaw, your
lips, your eyes, your forehead and other parts of your face, you can
look happy, sad, excited, curious, angry, bored, afraid, loving or
worried.

Usually our faces form these expressions on their own, based on the
feelings we have at the moment. Actors, politicians and some
criminals learn to form various expressions with their faces that are not
related to their emotions. That makes it difficult for others to
know for sure what they are really thinking or feeling.

Some
people claim to know what a person is thinking or feeling by the look in
his eyes, but the eyes do not change. What people really notice is the
tiny changes in the rest of the face that surround the eyes.

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Your eyes
have many different parts. Your eyelids are the skin
coverings that slide down over your eyeballs when you blink.
Eyelashes are short, curved hairs that grow from the bottom edge of
your eyelids. Eyebrows are the short, curved hairs that grow
above your eyelids. The colored part of your eyeballs is
called the iris.
Irises can be blue, green, brown,
yellow, or a combination of colors. The pupil is a black dot
in the center of your iris. The
pupil grows larger when
the light is dim and smaller when the light is bright.

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A person with
no hair on his head is said to be bald. If there is hair on
some parts of the head but not on others, that person is partially bald.
A person who is loosing his or her hair over a period of time is said to
be balding.

The glass or
plastic lenses set in metal or plastic frames and supported by the nose
and ears are called glasses,
eyeglasses or
spectacles. If the lenses have two or three sections in them,
they are called bifocals or
trifocals. Lenses that are
placed directly on the eyeball are called contacts or
contact
lenses.

Practice
reading Everyday English with the songs' Lyrics and the histories of the singers
and bands at www.mikiemetric.com .